Magical time of the year

Well here we are, on the edge of yet another holiday. The Christmas spirit surrounds us and even if we wanted to stop it from coming, it's here...tomorrow. Multitudes of people will awaken Christmas morning, rush to their trees and find that the magic of the season has come and they will tear into unknown wrapped treasures until there is nothing left but shreds of paper.

I miss those moments. I miss the magic of childhood, the joy of the tree sprinkled in presents, the hope that just what I asked for was waiting for me, hidden under the tree. Somehow the magic of the season fades away when you get older and are no longer surrounded by young ones. It feels like just another day.....except if you come across other people, they are a little kinder, gentler, nicer.....for the day.

I've been working retail this year and I forget how frazzled people get trying to get that "perfect" gift. How irrational they become over the exclusions of a coupon and how manic they get when the gift they wanted is no where to be found. Ahh, the commercialism of the holidays has certainly taken it's toll on the masses.

This year is kind of my year off. I don't know if it's the lack of income, the fact that I am working retail and can't hardly bare to enter a mall or the fact that I feel kinda grinchy but I am looking forward to Christmas being over. Forget the magic, forget the presents....just bring on the new year with new possibilities laid out before me without all the baggage of this last year.

I wish we could to a point where it isn't about the packages and bows as much as it is about people being kinder to each other. Boss's understanding the value of paying employee's a fair salary for a hard day's work, for partners to love and respect each other all times of the year and children learning the value of love and worry less about stuff....but that's not our culture, that's now who we are.....who we have created our society to be. I suppose we can do that for ourselves but ultimately we can't change that for others.

I'm making plans for this next year that will hopefully have me sitting here next year at this time marveling over the year I am leaving behind. Fondly looking back at a year that was full of amazing things.

So as the Christmas music turns into a distant memory and the presents we thought we could live without find a home in a forgotten part of our homes, may the new year bring with it all the good and amazing things we need.

A farewell to can't

Dear can't:

Saying goodbye to you does not make me sad. I will not miss you as much as you think I will. I want to find out what it feels like to live in the CAN DO world. I want to know what it feels like to do the unthinkable, to be able to look at the long hard challenges in front of me and be willing to go for it. Our relationship certainly has had it's ups and downs, mostly downs, but I believe you have served your purpose and thus, I must say goodbye to you.

From now on the difficult tasks will seem less difficult, I will see the road before me as a choice, and option, a place I want to be rather than something that is undoable or stressful. I will see the impossible tasks as simply possible.

So good-bye to you my friend, hopefully our paths will not cross again, but if they should, I hope you will see I am in a better place, partially because of you but mostly because I have learned and grown and really have become the best "me" I can possibly be.

Farewell Can't......hello Can.

*************************************************************************************

Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you
can’t change. Kiss slowly, forgive quickly, play hard, take chances give
everything and have no regrets.

Life is too short to be anything but happy!

*************************************************************************************

Learning to get to the now

Sometimes life gets in the way of what it is we really want. It seems like it's an endless race and someone keeps moving the finish line. Sometimes I really miss the innocence of youth. The belief in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny....that magical moment in time when there was something outside our own bubble that really gave me something to look forward to.

The older I get, I realize you have less magical moments to believe in. I wonder what changes that for a person. Is is a job, a partner, money? Is it tied to a time of the year or something deeper, way inside of us? Does the Universe really put things in our path when we need them. Is there really some merit to unanswered prayers? I mean, if we really got all that we ask for all the time, would we really appreciate anything? Don't we really value and appreciate the things we've worked hard for.....including the people we fight to keep in our lives.

Sometimes we have to learn to live in the here and now. Not to say we shouldn't focus on the future, but sometimes we have to accept what we can't control and just live in the now. I’ve noticed that the happier I feel, the less attached I am to outcomes. Instead of trying to acquire money, possessions, or other external things, my focus has shifted to self-expression, what I can control, what I can change.

I'm exhausted from focusing on what I don't have right now, feeling like I'm stuck in the same situation and sacrificing everything for the hope of a better tomorrow....like I'm running on a treadmill. I'm learning there is no "someday" and there is only right now. So it's time to make that move to the here and now....to today....to making choices that enhance and move my life forward....that stop holding you in one place that you can't seem to get out of.

Here's to the now....and leaving the past in the past.

And so it begins...or actually ends

It's bound to happen. Relationships end, friends lose touch, family moves apart. Time is our best friend and our worst enemy.

I have been fighting for so long to hang on to the things I want in my life. Like a mountain climber clutching the side of a mountain for dear life, I have dug my nails into the things I want so badly that I didn't see them crumbling right out from under me until suddenly (or that's how it seems) they have fallen apart. They are gone and I'm not sure I can get them back.

Mostly for me I've realized as I've gotten older, there is SO little we have control over. We can't control the weather or other people or - well, pretty much anything. We really have control over so very little in our own lives. I know it's not how we act but how we REACT to things. It's all in our attitude, our perception our whatever, but frankly....I'm kinda not really digging the fact that I seem to keep dealing with "endings" of one form or another.

I was happy and content in my life. I woke up everyday and did the same thing over and over to the point that people could and did call me predictable. Then something inside me decided that life wasn't good enough any longer so I pulled up stakes and changed my life pretty drastically.

At first it was all shiny and new and I was again happy and content. Then again, one day I woke up to discover that once again, it wasn't enough, there was something missing....something not quite right with who I was and where I was so I again made changes. Again I was happy and content but had this weird sort of heightened sense of reality that this too won't last. As soon as I am comfortable and happy with my madness, this too will change....and slowly over the last year it's happened again. This time however, seemed to be a shorter amount to time that spanned between the "I'll make changes and everything will be good again" and "wow, this isn't what I want at all, something has to change" time frame.

Is it because I'm older and dare I say "wiser"? Is it because I've had some things come into my life over the last year that I really wanted to stay and without my control, they have slowly dwindled and left without me making that decision? Or is it because I'm deciding much quicker that I don't have to wait for things to change, I can go ahead and make that happen? Either way, it's happening faster and thus...it begins again...but really that means things I like/enjoy/want in my life are ending and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

I think we had an amazing summer/fall this year and I loved that until this very last weekend, we were coat less and open toe shoes were still being strutted about like it was the middle of July. All of a sudden, we have gone into the boot/closed toe season and I feel like I wasn't quite ready. Is it because I fought it? I stubbornly dug my proverbial head in the sand and refused to accept that summer/fall was indeed over? All I know is here I sit, the middle of November, reflecting back on this year and trying like hell to not COMPARE it, but to look at it for what it was/is and how little time is left to try to make it be something that won't feel like a complete black hole of suckyness to end this year.

I feel really disappointed by this year. I had high hopes for it...I mean I was coming into this year with hope and anticipation and plans of it being a continuation of the last year and planned on riding that high through this year. I wanted not only my personal relationships to grow and flourish but I really thought my professional life would grow and bloom in many new ways that would not only enhance me from a challenging work focused perspective, but a financial one as well. I imagined I would finally be in a place of respect and financial wellness for myself that is LONG overdue and again, without my control, none of that really happened. Oh I was given new "opportunities", that's always good, but opportunities need to have rewards for a person on a personal level as well as a financial level and I don't know how to mesh that up when I have no control over it. It's just....disappointing.

Also, it's been a hard year for some of my very close friends...there have been job losses, long term relationships that ended and new additions to already stressed families and I want to help them all but find that by trying to maintain everyone else's life, it drains my life immensely and nothing is in place to refill that for me. I'm like that little buoy that's tied out to a mile marker that serves a purpose but no one is sure exactly what it is - but it is important.

And now the holidays are upon us. I reflect on all I'm really thankful for: family, friends, my health, my jobs.....I'm lucky. I'm super lucky, but yet, there is this huge missing piece, this huge open part that doesn't seem to have any place. How do you try to fix what you can't even see?

I miss the relationships I had last year, I feel responsible for the loss because I've been pretty self focused trying to figure out whatever path it is I'm suppose to be on and the harder I try to find it, the more confused it seems to be and thus I've ended up losing some relationships because a person only has so much to give. My well is dry. I miss those people that I could just BE myself with, that do simple things like having a coffee or seeing a movie was enough. Feels like everything has to be a bigger production - schedules have to be coordinated, families have to be notified and all the life changes have pulled us away from each other either because of relationship additions, complications or moving far away.

And so it begins...the ending that I've been fighting to not have happen...is actually happening right in front of me and down I fall.....to the bottom of the mountain only to pick myself up and try again.

All glitter, no guts

I love glitter, sparkle, bling....shiny objects. It catches my eye and makes me happy. I realize however, there is a fine line between tasteful bling and over the top "Oh my God how old does she think she is" glitter and bling. I also realize, that it takes on another layer when you get older. The whole glitter thing becomes something bigger than just the surface level sparkle you see.....all glitter and not guts doesn't really work.

If your going to do something, I say do it well. Don't half way do it, go into it with guns blazing and really give it 110%. I was talking to a co-worker who had just come from a meeting where she was trying to engage people in the idea of a new program. I don't know the details of the program, but she was trying to get buy-in from the group. She was trying to get everyone moving in the same direction and she said it's got "sparkle". She was describing this new potential program and repeatedly said it's got "sparkle". Finally someone said, "OK...but when the sparkle fades, what are we left with?" It's like you have to suddenly be brave with your mistakes and somehow keep on moving forward.

Sometimes it feels like life is all dependant on one moment. One single defining moment in time. We rush to grow up, to fall in love, to get that ring on our finger that says we are someone, that we matter, we belong, we are. Is life really wrapped inside a diamond ring?

We grow up learning to make wishes....we wish on falling stars, we close our eyes and wish with all our might as we blow out our birthday candles, we even make a wish and throw a penny in a fountain. What have you got to lose by wishing - right? Isn't wishing just a way for us to step outside our comfort zone? To look outside ourselves and want more, want what we don't have yet. To be brave and venture out onto a path we haven't yet walked on? The worst thing you've done is make a mistake, just make another wish. Isn't it time we learn to be brave with our own mistakes?

I like being first. The first one to open a jar of peanut butter, the first one in line at the coffee pots, the first one to be some where....being first. I feel like if I'm there first I get the choice of what I want, where I want to sit and mostly then I won't miss anything. That feels critical to me. Like if you don't want to be left behind. Maybe that's what the sparkle is for? To attract things to you. Who can avoid it? It's got a magnetic feel and pull to it. Even if your not a fan of it, you can't help but notice it.

It's time I suppose to put it all way, to pass it onto the younger generation of would-be's and forge onto a path that is uncluttered and unblinged and see what happens. What color is your life? When the sparkle fades, what are we left with?

It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I've been trying like hell to live my life with a sparkle effect....or bling-attude (if that isn't a word it should be!) and I thought wow....what do you do when your left with out something to distract, to deflect, to veer away from the reality of life?

What do you do when that's all gone?

Taking control

I realize in the span of our own lives there is so little we have actual control over so it shouldn't surprise me that when you give a person an inch to have some control they run with it like a squirrel storing food for the winter. Give them an inch and almost always, they take a mile.

People never cease to amaze me. They always want more, different...they want the world to revolve around them and the minute they get it they kinda go a little bonkers. I'm of course including myself in that mess - we really are quite complicated individuals!

I've always said I hate being alone, I hate having time alone, by myself and so I do things to be sure that doesn't happen but after a few weeks of running at warp speed I get exhausted and cranky and wonder why I don't have any control over my life. I do whatever I can to keep moving, to keep being out there because that seems to matter...it makes me feel like I matter so I run, I run at warp speed until I hit the proverbial wall.

One of my pet peeves is when people say YES to something only to cancel at the last minute or not even show up and yet I've been doing that lately for a few reasons:

• I'm over committing my time - I apparently can't say YES to everything
• I have no real control over my time like I used to, work is kind of my master right now
• Frankly I'm kind of exhausted

I always joke about the fact that I want/need someone to take care of me for a while but really, that's not the answer. The answer is balance, which I am pretty bad at. I need to find a way to balance all the chatter in my head and heart screaming at me that it hates being alone and home and balance that with all the things I've said yes to....things I enjoy, people I enjoy spending time with, and hopefully someone new and important to spend my time with. I'm tired. I'm tired of being tired all the time. I keep pushing myself thinking I'll get to that next point, that next place and I'm wondering if that place doesn't really exist anywhere except in fairy tales or in my own messed up mind.

We all have those moments that someone says something or something happens that makes us go Whoa...wait...what!? That's not me. I call those a "brick in the windshield" moment. It sometimes takes a brick in the windshield to make us stop and take pause....to look at our own self in the same way others are seeing us. Sometimes it hurts....because we have our own walls of denial and security we have built up around us and suddenly we have to see ourselves in a new light and sometimes its a brick in the windshield moment.

Life is nothing if it's not constantly a learning experience. All we can do is try...to keep moving we need to take control of our own lives, thoughts and time and just do the best we can. After all, we are only here for a short time, why not enjoy the ride?

What is perfect

We all strive to be the best we can be, to be the shining star - to be perfect. We try hard in school, at work, in life and we want others to see us and think of us a perfect but the reality is we all have our flaws.

I admit I get caught in my own little bubble of imperfections. I look at myself and I only see what is wrong with me, what I need to change and if your lucky (I sure am!) you get lots of other people around you who are always willing to tell you what you need to change about yourself too.
Today I kinda got sidetracked....I've been at work since very early, so I was in before the cafeteria opens - usually I am one of the first through so I almost never have to see people or even fight them to get my coffee, but there are the few times I'm off schedule and I have to deal. Today, although I wasn't off schedule, I had to deal...I never like having to deal in the morning...but I did.

Along the way I encountered some of the regular morning people I see and some new faces, there is apparently a "school" in today. Three different people stopped me to tell me I had - and I quote "perfect hair". PERFECT HAIR! I'll admit, the first time I was like....have some coffee...your still sleeping lady but the second time I kinda paused and said "really" - "seriously". It kinda added a little pep in my step. Then the third time I was like...."wow...I am soooo rocking this Wednesday!" ha ha. I don't really think my hair, or frankly anything about me is perfect but it's nice to get that little burst of validation without asking for it.

A person could get used to that kind of treatment.